Judge hopes serving time on weekends will help petty thief

A man who has a roughly 30-year history of petty property crimes has been given an intermittent sentence of 44 days in jail for his latest spree.

Martin Henry Hurley of Corner Brook was convicted of prowling at night and defrauding the Royal Bank for cashing a $630 cheque that didn’t belong to him.

No stranger to the provincial court system, Judge Kymil Howe told Hurley that it seemed his pattern of criminal behaviour, typified by prior convictions for prowling around vehicles and stealing items from inside them, had actually been declining in frequency lately. She said she wasn’t sure if this was because he was getting older or if it was because of the professional intervention he has been receiving to help mend his ways.

Howe felt his latest offences called for a term of imprisonment to further deter Hurley, but she agreed to allow him to serve it on weekends so he could continue to access the intervention help that may be helping him.

In addition to ordering Hurley to serve 30 days for the fraud offence and another 14 for the prowling charge, Howe placed him on 18 months of probation.